Trust assurances, but verify
Acevedo should release the videos from six recent fatal shootings by HPD officers
Being black in America should not be a death sentence.
Yet here we are. Again. This time it was Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey who spoke those words over the death of George Floyd, who grew up in Houston, last week. We have heard versions of them before as other lives were lost to police violence.
Over the past few years, the list is long and full of names that have become rallying cries: Eric Garner. Tamir Rice. Freddie Gray. Walter Scott. Philando Castile.
We need not use a broad brush to see the vile picture the blood of each man has painted. It’s a searing image that compels us to filter any use of force by police through a vigilant lens of skepticism.
This doubt — this vigilant questioning, not blind condemnation — is as necessary as law enforcement’s obligation to be transparent. Accountability is crucial for public safety — for the trust that must exist between a community and its sworn protectors — and it can only be achieved through clarity.
That is as true in Houston as it is in Minneapolis, where protests turned violent Thursday night.
On the same day that a police officer kept his knee pressed down on Floyd’s neck as he lay helplessly handcuffed and dying, Houston police were involved in their sixth deadly shooting in as many weeks. Five of the people killed were black or Hispanic, causing an outcry among minority advocacy groups.
The reason for the spike is unclear, and experts hesitate to call it a trend. While there is a possibility that the spate of shootings could be attributed to pressures brought on by the pandemic, it could also be a random clustering.
Last year, there were 11 killings by police. Four of them happened in January, including the deaths of Rhogena Nicholas and Dennis Tuttle in the botched Harding Street raid. Since 2015, Houston has had 56 fatal officer-involved shootings, according to a database kept by The Washington Post.
Much like in the latest deaths, most of the people killed were black or Hispanic.
While the current spike may be random, James Douglas, head of the Houston NAACP, told the editorial board that it can’t be mere happenstance that so many of the dead men were minorities.
“This whole thing turns on race, and if we don’t admit that’s a problem and try to deal with that problem, it is going to continue to be a problem,” he said.
Police Chief Art Acevedo pushed back on suggestions of racial motivation and noted that most of the officers involved are also people of color.
“What we have to respond to is the actions of individuals,” Acevedo told the Chronicle. “It saddens me that people look at race. What we need to look at is that behavior.”
Looking at that behavior in the information available in the six shootings seems to support the chief ’s call to examine each case individually.
Nicolas Chavez, 27, was reportedly threatening bystanders with a piece of rebar. Over the course of a 14minute encounter, officers used Taser rounds and bean bag projectiles, but the man allegedly continued to threaten them. At least four officers opened fire, killing Chavez, after he allegedly charged at them. Cell phone video seems to show Chavez was kneeling when he was shot. On Wednesday, Acevedo said the FBI is investigating.
Christopher Aguirre, 28, called 911 and told a dispatcher, “I’m ready for y’all” before firing his gun randomly on a residential street. When police arrived, he allegedly shot at officers behind a home. When he moved to the front porch and raised his gun, three officers with rifles opened fire.
Adrian Medearis, 48, was stopped for speeding and placed under arrest for suspected DWI. He was being handcuffed when allegedly a struggle ensued, and he managed to grab the officer’s Taser. The officer fired multiple shots, striking Medearis at least twice.
Rayshard Scales, 30, was allegedly brandishing a firearm when police were called. Officials said the man was advancing on an officer when he reached for what appeared to be a weapon in his waistband. The officer fired multiple times. Scales was found to have a BB-gun.
Randy Lewis, 38, had an extensive criminal record and was out on bond when he allegedly stabbed and killed an 80-year-old woman outside a Walgreens. An officer flagged down by witnesses confronted the armed man, opening fire when he did not obey commands.
A still-unidentified man had allegedly been drinking and had fired a weapon when his wife called police. When officers arrived, the man fired several times into the ground, police said. He then pointed the gun at the officers, who opened fire, according to police.
To the police chief ’s point, each case is different, even if it ends the same way. Every loss of life is a tragedy, but it’s just as true that not every use of lethal force by police officers is unjustified.
So far, Acevedo has said the right things, including voicing the need to fully investigate. All cases of officerinvolved shootings are brought to Harris County grand juries, and most are scrutinized by the Houston Police Department’s Special Investigations Unit and Internal Affairs Unit.
But just as he has not released the audit of HPD’s narcotics division stemming from the Harding Street raid, the chief has so far declined to make public any of the video available in the recent shootings, including any from body cameras worn by officers. Acevedo has claimed this is out of respect for the victims’ families and that releasing the video publicly could taint any local potential criminal prosecution.
These are valid concerns, but they are superseded by the public’s right to know.
None of Houston’s six shootings seem to rise to the egregious level of abuse and brutal indifference that caused the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, but history and the persistent pattern of such tragedies has taught us not to rely exclusively on Acevedo’s verbal assurances.
We’ll take his word, and the videos.